Incoming Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says tax cuts will definitely go ahead.
This is despite a word of caution from the ACT Party.
"We said we are going to go ahead and deliver tax relief for low and middle income New Zealanders. That is a key part of our commitment to New Zealanders," Luxon said on Monday
Like National, ACT is keen on lower taxes, but dialed back its own plans after Treasury's Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update in September.
ACT leader David Seymour thinks his talks with Christopher Luxon will have to have the economy at centre stage.
"There will be a third person in that conversation, and that will be fiscal reality," Seymour told Stuff.
Seymour is known to be strongly focused on reducing government spending, arguing this will help fight inflation.
But Luxon says giving tax cuts is entirely appropriate.
"We have got people who are doing it tough, they ae working incredibly hard and they deserve to keep more of their own money. We have got a very effective tax plan and it is self-funded," Luxon says.
There have been suggestions that the new Government will issue a mini-budget before Christmas to deal with tough economic conditions.
But the likely incoming Finance Minister Nicola Willis gave no assurance that this would definitely happen.
"Our first step is to form a Government, that is what we are focussed on right now an everything else is subsequent to that," she says.
In answer to another question about any potential vulnerability of tax cuts to new economic information, Luxon says he wants to deliver tax relief "and that is what we are planning to do."
Meanwhile Luxon says the process of forming a new government will be done discretely.
"The focus is on three things," he says.
"There are still 570,000 special votes that need to be counted....and so we have to wait until that dynamic is played out. Having said that, we are having to build relationships, and to work through arrangements with respective parties," Luxon says.
"We are going to do that confidentially, in private, and we are not going to be doing that through the media."
In the meantime, talks will be held with other parties one at a time.
"We will be having discussions with the parties but we will do that privately, professionally and constructively and we will not be giving you a blow-by-blow account daily," Luxon says.
Luxon also laughed at rumours that Winston Peters would be offered the position of speaker. He refused to specifically rule it out, but appeared to quash it by saying "a lot of people's 'reckons' turn out to be very wrong."
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